


In the name of Good

by ficwriter103



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Amnesia, Borderline Torture, Child Abuse, Gen, Medical Experimentation, Original Character - Freeform, PTSD, Reincarnation, Spoilers for the Manga, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-21 15:35:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/901948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficwriter103/pseuds/ficwriter103
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Many people worked on the Second Exorcist project. You wonder if anyone remembers that you did too. You weren’t there when the massacre. When you think about what you’ve done, you sometimes wish you had been. But you are a coward now, like you were a coward then, too afraid to stand up, say no, and die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the name of Good

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luminare_ardua](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luminare_ardua/gifts).



> There seems to be a dearth of fics examining the horrific experiments Yuu Kanda and Alma Karma had undergone in the name of Second Exorcist Project. Well, add one to that number now. This is the first fic I wrote in this style. Apologies for wild inaccuracies.

To date, no one talks about the Second Exorcist Project. Why would they, anyway? It ended in abject failure. Out of the thousands, only two woke. Out of the two, only one survived.

Yuu Kanda. 

You see him around the Order. You have been transferred from branch to branch after the massacre until no one really remembers that you were part of the project in the first place. You supposed that maybe you have a forgettable face. You used to wish people would notice you. Maybe now, it is a blessing.

In the crowd, his eyes pass over you. They are hard, unyielding, as they have always been. You know. You were there. You made the first drink he drank. You took readings, monitored his vitals, watched him take unsteady first steps, then observed as he grew in power and strength. You would never forget Yuu Kanda. But it seems, he has forgotten you.

He is strong, stronger than before and maybe he will become stronger yet.

Sometimes, you find yourself tracing his pathways towards the training rooms. You watch him disrobe, pick up his sword and practice his katas.

His skin is unblemished, save for the tattoo over his heart. 

But you remember. 

You remember all of it.

His elbows. His nape. The small of his back. His arms, legs, chest, torso, every spot where you punched holes for the metal tubes to enter. You forced electrodes into each tube. And since Second Exorcists had a super healing factor, you would have to do it over again tomorrow. Sometimes even later that day.

You remember the way he screamed the first week, but his silence afterwards haunts you more.

Yuu Kanda takes pain lightly. He doesn’t scream when Allen carts him back in, trying to hold his insides in him long enough for his skin to cleave back together. He doesn’t flinch when windows burst and he’s pumped full of Akuma bullets. He doesn’t wince even when the poison ravages his body.

Then again, nothing really compares to an equipment malfunction that pumps forty thousand volts through your body, frying your every synapse. The real agony is the regeneration when the cells forcibly pull themselves back together. You wouldn’t know though, you only overheard him talking about it with Alma Karma. 

You’ve stitched his arms back onto his body. You’ve reattached fingers, feet, legs for him before this. When the order decided not to waste thread on him, you watched Alma sit with him, literally holding him together until he was healed.

He cried. Then he sniffled. Eventually, all you saw of his pain was the furrow in his brow and the downward curve of his tiny mouth.

He looks like he’s twenty years old now. You still can’t decide how old he actually is. The original memories of Yuu Kanda were 36 years old before he was killed in an Akuma attack. This artificial body had been around for 6 years before it was activated. Now this incarnation has been active for 12 years. So is he actually 18? Counting the age of this body? Or is he really 12 for being active that long? You wish you could think of him as an old 48 year old based on the sum of all his memories but he still looks like a teenager.

He used to look like a child. 

You are not a family man. You were never close with your siblings or your parents, but you do remember having a relatively happy childhood. 

You remember looking forward to snowball fights. You remember fighting in school. You remember having good food. You remember happiness. You remember comfort.

He doesn’t go to school. He only has a white uniform that he wears day in and day out. The other researchers don’t really talk to him so he doesn’t know that Winter is a season, not a man. His artificial body requires a special diet so he knows nothing but the pills and tasteless liquid. He doesn’t remember happiness or contentment but that is only because he has never felt it.

He laughs. You’re not sure if he truly feels the emotion, or if he’s just copying it off the researchers. Some part of you hopes that it’s a left over human emotion from his previous memories.

Still, you’re glad he laughs. 

No. 

You’re glad he laughed.

He doesn’t.

Not anymore.

 

You told yourself he wasn’t real at first. You told yourself that you had helped make the body, poured the chemicals, triggered mitosis and then helped them set in the mold. He was supposed to be a doll, a pretty fighting doll that would solve the lack of Innocence- compatible Exorcists.

Funny how forcing him to accept Innocence, also caused him to lose it.

He turned out to be more than a doll. He turned out to be a real, living, breathing humanoid being (You’re still not sure if you can call him a human) even if there’s a huge possibility he’s just faking his emotions.

He’s just a kid, you remember thinking one day. You remember the date. You remember his dead-eyed, quiet acceptance of painful electrodes and synchronization tests. You remember leaving the room to throw up in the corner when his arm comes off for the umpteenth time. It was bright outside when you thought of resigning, transferring to another branch.

You claimed you had an infectious stomach bug, faked the paperwork and then prepared to lose yourself in the town for a week.

Your self-imposed exile ended abruptly on day four. Your communicator blitzed briefly before spitting out two words.

“He remembers.”

It is a mad scramble for belongings and the fare for a cab back to HQ. 

The cab driver ditched you halfway there, overcharged you and your heart was in your throat. It took you seven hours to get to the building.

When you finally opened up the doors to the lab, you were greeted by a dried blood and an announcement.

Yuu Kanda had escaped.

You remember feeling so relieved. He was free of it. You remember feeling horrified. Every single one of the scientists present had died. Alma Karma had turned on them. Yuu Kanda had turned on him. You had thought, at least that proved Yuu Kanda had the basis of emotions. You were still clinging to the false notion that he wasn’t truly human, wasn’t truly a person. It made hurting him so much easier.

You went back to your room, tore down the giant poster on the wall. It had read ‘For the good of mankind,’ followed by a blank space. When you entered the Order ten years ago, you filled in the blank with a big ‘I am prepared to do anything’. 

Your colleagues were dead. Alma Karma was dead. There were a lot of injured people. Yuu Kanda was missing.

Yuu Kanda came back.

At first, you wondered why he came back. You wondered why he would stay with an organization that he tortured him in the name of Good. It made no sense for him to come back to pain and anger and betrayal. Then again, it was the only thing he ever knew.

Or rather, the only thing he was allowed to know.

You put in the paperwork and transferred departments. You run from the reminders of the blood on your hands. Though you have never killed anyone with your hands, his agony and suffering under your care is all undeniably your guilt. 

Yuu Kanda never ran. He was never kept in a locked room, or forbidden to leave. He simply chose to stay. 

Somehow, you think maybe that’s why you do too.

His gaze lingers, briefly, on you. Yuu Kanda has gotten better with facial expressions but he still has the ingrained habit of stoicism. It happens for a brief second, but you see that he smirks, just a little, then looks away. 

A chill goes down your spine. You know that Yuu Kanda doesn’t smile. Not anymore at least. You know he doesn’t laugh anymore either. The only time you’ve ever seen him smirk like that, was when he was facing down Akuma. 

And if he looks in the face of evil with that expression, what does that make you?


End file.
